The Annihilator actually appeared in an episode before that called ‘Hawk and Dove’, where it was made by the god Hephaestus for the god Ares, and then given to one side in a conflict in Eastern Europe so Ares could sit back and lol at the peasants killing each other.

Ensconced in dank subterranean forges these Hephaestus-like practitioners hammer-out out from the mute schist of their environments the vaguest and earliest impressions of ideas and technologies some of which will one day appear as these same companies that superangels will foist with lavish checks.